Running for Home

The great parade of life has its midway, sideshows and more represented in art.

Under music’s big top, Canadian musician Matthew Good, with co-writer Dave Genn, exposes the carney heart in “Running for Home” (originally released on the Matt Good Band’s 1999 album "Beautiful Midnight".

Running for Home from Allison Crowe on Vimeo.

Allison Crowe’s solo performance of this song is soundtrack here to “Circus”, sixth of seven dream sequences comprising “Dreams That Money Can Buy” - Hans Richter’s 1947 surrealist film. This dream includes appearances by several of Alexander Calder’s wire+ creations.

Calder (1898- 1976), the American sculptor who originated the ‘mobile’ (kinetic sculpture), created stationary sculptures, as well, known as ‘stabiles’. Fascinated with the circus from childhood, his ‘Cirque Calder’ of miniatures was made from wire, string, cloth, rubber and various found objects, and filled five suitcases. This sculpted troupe traveled for improvised performances in North America and Europe in the 1920s – 1930s.

#14 of 16 Songs

          

Spiral

“Discs and Nudes Descending a Staircase” represents a cinematic vision of Marcel Duchamp. The French painter, Cubist, Dadaist, artist and anti-artist collaborated on the fourth dream sequence in Hans Richter’s 1947 surrealistic film “Dreams That Money Can Buy”.

Spiral from Allison Crowe on Vimeo.

This excerpt joins “Spiral” from Allison Crowe (voice, piano, composer, engineer), Dave Baird (bass), Laurent Boucher (percussion), Larry Anschell (guitar, engineer), and Kayla Schmah (producer).

“To all appearances”, said Duchamp (1887 – 1968), “the artist acts like a mediumistic being who, from the labyrinth beyond time and space, seeks (their) way out to a clearing.”

#9 of 16 Songs

Disease

An all-time great rock song and performance kicks off “16 Songs”. Here’s Allison Crowe live-in-concert – captured by Turtle Recording’s Larry Anschell (Engineer and Producer) and Brad Graham (Co-Engineer). 

Lyrical and social themes “as we replace marble with plastic” mesh visually with “Dreams That Money Can Buy” – the avant garde cinematic creation of German surrealist, Dadaist+ Hans Richter and collaborators. "The Girl with the Prefabricated Heart", the second of DTMCB’s seven dream sequences, is shaped by the rich vision of French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker, Fernand Léger. This experimental feature film received the Award for the Best Original Contribution to the Progress of Cinematography at the 1947 Venice Film Festival.

"Power-house intense" says an European reviewer, “"the energy of ‘Disease' can easily provide electricity to a small country for a decade."

Writing in Süddeutsche Zeitung, a major German daily newspaper, journalist Peter Baier sets the stage (in this translation): “From the outset the Canadian songwriter wins the favor of the audience and increases the expectations with her coloratural laugh. Allison Crowe plays the piano with a strong grip. Its sound fits perfectly to her slightly-smoky, expressive, in short: Great voice. Sometimes her playing recalls the keyboard-capers of Konstantin Wecker and then there are moments to bring to mind Modest Mussorgsky’s „Pictures at an Exhibition“.

(And in the original text: Bereits mit ihren ersten Ansagen gewinnt die kanadische Songwriterin mit eigenem Label die Gunst des Publikums, lässt mit ihrem Koloratur-Lachen die Erwartung auf Weiteres ansteigen. Mit kräftigem Zugriff spielt Allison Crowe das Klavier, zu dessen Klang ihre leicht rauchige, ausducksstarke, kurz: große Stimme hervorragend passt. Manchmal erinnert ihr Spiel an die Tasten-Eskapaden eines Konstantin Wecker, dann wieder gibt es Momente, die an den Stil von Modest Mussorgsky's „Bilder einer Ausstellung“ denken lassen.)

“Amazing composition,” says another in the musician’s broadly international audience, “there is so much intellect in the music writing of Allison Crowe, which you don’t see anywhere these days, not from the new artists nor the established ones.”

It’s an intellect revealed in part via inspired musical choices and its energetic expression is visceral in nature. Energy flows from the performer on-stage to engulf concert-goers as well. Spontaneous eruptions - stomping feet, clapping hands, rhythmically pulsing bodies – accompany this song (a recent bootleg video from Jazzhaus Freiburg further testifies to this rocking reality).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6t4Gk15IB4

#1 of 16 Songs